My Side of the Mountain

 My Side of the Mountain

    Recently I've been reading My Side of the Mountain. Unlike a lot of other books that I've read in the past, this book has a very different and distinct writing style. As a pseduo-survival book, retelling Sam's experiences in the wild and getting acustomed to a life away from life as he knows it, I'm suprised that I like it so much, as it is a relatively new genre to me.

    The imagery and details the author includes in the writing make the enviornment Sam is currently in seem so vivid and alive. As the mountains and animals are becoming alive as the story is constructed, the language that the author artfully uses take the book to the next level. A huge technique that gets used throughout the book is personification. In his loneliness in the wilderness, Sam makes friends with several animals, who accompany him in his time on the mountain. These animals are introduced and developed just like real people, making them interesting and unpredictable members of the story. Whether it be the "Baron Weasel", one of Sam's more fiesty neighbors, or Frightful, his pet bird, they're all given human traits to make the dynamic between them and Sam more interesting. The author compares the weasel's rock home to a castle, detailing and describing his "dignified" behavior, showing the reader his strut and walk. This technique is similarly present in a lot of the poetry we read in class. A key portion of many poems, personification helps all types of literature feel more alive. Through my explorations of poetry, and now prose, heavy-laden with this method, I clearly see the importance and relevance of this move in author's craft.